Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Wednesday 9th April

In this Bulletin…

- Rudd criticized for comments on Tibet;
- Polls close in South Korea; and
- Human Rights poem relay starts in Canada.

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Senior Chinese Government officials have criticized Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over comments he made yesterday about Chinese actions in Tibet.

In Washington, Mr Rudd said it was clear that human rights abuses were being committed in Tibet, and today he repeated those claims during a speech at a university in Beijing.

While Chinese Government officials say his comments are unfounded Mr Rudd says he will not be backing away from his plan to raise his concerns with the Chinese leadership.

Rudd is the second visiting world leader to comment on the anti-government rioting that erupted last month in Tibet’s provincial capital Lhasa and Tibetan-inhabited areas across western China.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark on Monday urged China to show restraint in its response to the protests and engage in dialogue with its critics.

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Polls have closed in South Korea’s parliamentary elections, with the ruling conservative party poised to secure an overall majority.

Exit polls gave the Grand National Party between 155 and 178 of the 299 seats in the legislature.

Winning a parliamentary majority would allow new President Lee Myung-bak to pass the wide-ranging economic reforms he has been promising.

Official results are expected at around midnight (1500GMT).

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Today, Canada will take part in a virtual demonstration against China’s human rights policies via a poem “relay” organized by an international writers’ association.

A poem entitled “June”, written by imprisoned Chinese poet and journalist Shi Tao, will arrive via the Internet in Toronto on Wednesday as part of a multi-continent tour by International PEN,
which champions writers’ freedom of expression.

The so-called poetry relay is intended to mimic the heavily protested Olympic Games torch relay.
The PEN poem relay ends in Beijing prior to the opening of the 2008 Olympics on August 8.

To track the poem, visit: http://www.penpoemrelay.org

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Yesterday Haitians protested and attempted to storm the National Palace to protest against rising food prices, which have paralysed the impoverished nation’s capital.

Some demonstrators in the city carried empty plates to show the government they had nothing to eat.

U.N. peacekeepers fired rubber bullets and tear gas to control the angry mob after the protesters used large steel garbage containers as battering rams to try to smash the gates of the palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, witnesses said.

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And now for our original SOH news direct from China
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On 7th April, Zhang Rongkun, the person at the centre of a Shanghai social security case was sentenced to 19 years in prison.

He also had more than 1.3 billion Yuan (180 million US dollars) of assets confiscated.

Shanghai human rights lawyer Zheng Enchong felt that the most critical aspect of the case was the matter of land corruption, but this matter was not discussed at the sentencing.

Zhang Rongkun said that he will appeal the decision.

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According to Free Asia Radio reports, last week the Chinese Communist police opened fire and suppressed the Tibetan monks and people in Ganzi at Sichuan, and after drawing the attention from the international community, the Chinese Communist authorities recently threatened the Tibetan people that anyone who speaks to international media will be sentenced as an “illegal” Criminal.

A Tibetan person from the county said that there are a large number of troops stationed in Ganzi at the guesthouses, and a number of hotels, and it was heard that they will be stationed there until the end of Beijing Olympic Games.

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And now for our daily update on the NTDTV Divine Performing Arts “New Year Spectacular” show.
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Yesterday was the last day of performances of the Divine Performing Arts Spectacular shows in Brisbane and in Bucharest. The Spectacular will reopen on Friday in Canberra.

According to reports from The Epoch Times, the Spectacular experienced one of its most enthusiastic audiences ever at the Bucharest National Theatre in Romania on Tuesday night.

The delighted audience stood and cheered, bringing the performers back for three curtain calls.

On business in Bucharest for just two days, Nicole Conrad, senior department manager for a large company in Düsseldorf, Germany, caught the show as she travelled through town.

She explained that she was not so familiar with culture of China but had the feeling that somebody put very good feelings into the show.

For more information about the Divine Performing Arts world tour, please visit: www.divineperformingarts.org